Why Does God Use Pictures and Parables to Communicate?
I was reading Acts 21 recently and came to the account of Agabus the prophet, who came to Paul with a message. Instead of simply telling Paul what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem, he performed a strange little play. He took Paul’s girdle, bound his own hands and feet with it, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles (Acts 21:11).
Why didn’t he simply say, “Paul, when you get to Jerusalem, the Jews are going to bind you and turn you over to the Gentiles?”
Reading that passage reminded me of when I was a new believer reading through the Gospels for the first time and coming across the parables. They often left me frustrated and wondering what the point was. If God wanted me to know something, why didn’t He just say it plainly? Now I had to work to understand it, and frankly, I didn’t want to.
Over time, I saw more of this. In the Old Testament, God sometimes required His prophets to act out some pretty strange things instead of simply stating the message. Ezekiel was required to lie on his side for hundreds of days, picturing the years of iniquity and judgment connected with Israel and Judah (Ezekiel 4:4–8). God told Isaiah to walk naked and barefoot as a sign of coming captivity (Isaiah 20:2–4). Hosea was even commanded to marry a whore, making his own marriage a living picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God (Hosea 1:2–3).
Eventually I realized that these pictures were not incidental. They are one of God’s ways of communicating, and He tells us so: I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets (Hosea 12:10).
God clearly uses pictures. The real question is why.
Jesus Himself gave one reason. When His disciples asked why He spoke in parables, He answered, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given (Matthew 13:11). The parable did two things at once. It revealed truth to those willing to receive it, while concealing that same truth from those who would not.
Truth Hidden in Plain Sight
But there is an even deeper reason. Proverbs 25:2 says, It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
That verse explains a great deal about the Bible. God doesn’t always place truth on the surface. Sometimes He conceals it inside a picture, a pattern, a historical event, a name, an object or a similitude, and expects us to search it out by comparing Scripture with Scripture. Why this detail? Why this picture? Where have I seen this before?
That takes work, patience, time and, above all, curiosity. It requires us to get past the frustration of not understanding everything immediately. It calls us to Study to shew thyself approved (2 Timothy 2:15).
Jesus repeatedly said, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. There is more involved in understanding Scripture than simply reading words on a page. We have to develop eyes to see and ears to hear.
God also wants us to know more than His acts. He wants us to know His ways. There is a difference between knowing what God said and did and beginning to understand how God works.
Pictures, similitudes, patterns and shadows are part of His ways. The more familiar we become with those ways, the more we will know Him.
Moses understood this. He prayed, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee (Exodus 33:13). Psalm 103:7 adds, He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. It is one thing to know God’s acts by knowing the history as Israel did. It is another to recognize His ways as Moses did.
What once frustrated me about the Bible now fascinates me. The pictures that once seemed to get in the way of understanding now make me want to dig for the riches buried underneath and marvel at the glory of God I find there.
Jody